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West Virginia Is Geothermically Active
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region."
If anyone's an idiot, it idiot's who don't RTFA before making idiotic comments. The research wasn't simply to find hot springs, it was to identify which locations in the US were the most favourable for Geothermal Energy production.
It's green energy and you have to drill to get it.
Although very generous, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call Google's grant to SMU a "collaboration", or to only mention Google and omit any mention of USDOE and other entities that have been funding this research at SMU and elsewhere for many years. For example, this this report from 2006, which points out the potential of the thermal hotspot in West Virginia...
It doesn't have the cool Google Earth graphics, however.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
OTH, somebody like Google will have no issue with putting in their OWN system, setting up a data center, and shipping bits/bytes out. What would that do to WV? It would lead to a massive influx of money seeking to do the same. And that would lead to the high tension lines as well. For WV, this is the best thing possible.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Dems run around throwing money at Wind (meh) and Solar PV (a waste of money).
This is what I always admire about the political climate in the US. There is always someone willing to come up with a well-considered, polite, nuanced, and rational treatise of the pro's and con's of a problem, even for a complicated problem such as alternative energy. No wonder that the US is universally considered the best-functioning democracy in the world.
5km is a bit too deep for coal fires.
In any case, 200C at 5 km is also quite deep for economically viable hydrothermals. That is "deep drilling" territory which is quite expensive. As the article notes Nevada has it at sub-2km, so does most of Europe along the Alps fault line.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Actually, drilling is far more environmentally cleaner than is mining. Mining normally involves tailings, except for Coal. With coal, they simply strip mine it as you have pointed out. Geo-thermal, is a fairly clean operation. Yeah, it has its issues, but they are SOOO much less than Coal. In fact, it is around the same as Solar PV, and even less than Wind. Solar PV involves some pretty wicked chemicals. Likewise, Wind requires loads of Rare Earth Elements, iron, etc. In the end, you have to pick your poison on where you are going to get your energy. Myself? I will take geo-thermal. Ideally, we would allow all energy to compete on a level field, rather than allowing politicians to pick it by who lines their pockets.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, it would never dawn on a mining state to be interested in obtaining lithium, Rare Earths, etc. Nor would they or the EPA know how to handle this correctly.
They know, but they don't care.
Skipping the sarcasm, the drilling will likely be a binary system, and would be a good way to obtain minerals, elements since it is a by-product. Then what is left can be re-injected back in. Basically, it turns a well from a energy producer into a energy and mineral producer.
It doesn't work that way. What comes out of the earth is usually heavily contaminated and it's not cost-effective to try to separate it. Separating the metals takes a lot of big stuff that you don't want to build next to a geothermal hotspot because they're seismically active. When you start pumping stuff into the ground you increase the seismic activity. In order to pump the stuff into the ground at all you'll need to add water, which is going to have to be pumped in.
I live near to (formerly right next to) The Geysers, the most geothermally active spot on the planet. There is a geothermal plant there which is perpetually over budget and under-producing power compared to expectations. The turbine blades build up with heavy metals including arsenic. When there's enough to interfere with efficiency the turbines are suspended over an open pit and pressure-washed. The water is permitted to evaporate off the pit, and when it's full enough they pour a concrete cap on the pit, build the walls higher, and start again. This is an EPA-approved plan.
Before the EPA got involved they were filling up drums with the stuff and burying it in a field on Butts Canyon road. Then we started having cows born with two heads and stuff like that. They dug it up, put in a plastic liner, and reburied it. In another few decades we can have the same problem all over again.
When the steam started to run low due to overuse we started pumping sewage into the ground to add steam pressure. This worked, but seismic activity was multiplied by a factor of two or three. A massive lawsuit resulted in a payback program for local homeowners who can show seismic damage.
In short, the only kind of geothermal even suitable for use is heat pipe heating/cooling. It's not useful for large-scale power generation. We simply do not have the scruples necessary as a species to do geothermal power correctly. Also, the EPA is a bad fucking joke with no teeth, and suggesting that the EPA will protect us is preschool-level naivety.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...then we could have had the Robert Byrd Hot Air Energy Generation Facility, and his legacy would live on!
Robert Byrd left us his namesake Hot Air Energy Generation Facility. It's called the United States Senate.
rd
Which makes me think of a question maybe someone here at /. can answer: Can miners/drillers set off enough "little ones" to cause a big one? The reason I ask is I was recently shown a map I found most disturbing. A friend is working processing geological data for a wildcat drilling company, which since 2003 or so these groups have been given the keys to the kingdom around here since the economy has been down here since the factories closed ( which BTW we have lost 42 THOUSAND in the USA since 2001, thanks greedy corporations!) and the earthquake data was scary. Before they showed up we are talking an average of 1.4 on the Richter scale, and only one every decade. Since 2004 we are talking dozens in the 2.4-3 scale, all concentrated in tiny areas near the wells.
So my question is this: If these guys set off enough earthquakes in that range, can they set off New Madrid, which we are on? Not that it really matters much in the end I suppose, as we are so "corporation yay!" here they could dump their garbage on the court house steps and everyone in the chamber of commerce would pretend its roses, but those places that aren't complete corporate whores might want to watch out if it is possible. Of course if they did cause a disaster I have no doubt they'd just fold the corporation and walk away with the cash, which is why I think we need serious corporate reform in this country, not that it will ever happen.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What part of the summary, never mind the article, suggests that simply finding geothermal activity was the research goal here? I mean, here's your first sentence:
Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States.
Did you seriously stop after reading title? And then criticise the researchers for not noticing things?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Near Inferno, West Virginia
Fiery Mountains, pyroclastic rivers
Life is doomed there, 'midst the blackened trees
See the mighty mountains tremb'lin like leaves
Lava flows, take me home
To the place that erupts
West Virginia, baleful mama
Take me home, Lava flows.
May the Maths Be with you!
WV has a bad reputation, and story URLs like that are not going to help